Get Ready, Amazon Australia are Set to Launch this Friday

The moment has arrived. It looks like Amazon is set to launch across the country this Thursday with what the company is calling a ‘soft launch’. The full site is predicted to be up and running to coincide with the ‘Black Friday’ sales.

This year, after what felt like ages of speculation, Amazon formally announced that it would be opening its doors in Australia. While the company didn’t give an exact launch date, we seem to have confirmation from an internal email from Amazon obtained on Tuesday evening by ‘Lifehacker’. The email was from Amazon’s Australian operations team, confirming to sellers that a soft launch of the site would be happening this Thursday, with the formal launch of the site this weekend (Black Friday).

While the brand hasn’t made any formal announcements to consumers or confirmed the site will be ready and open for business this weekend, both business owners and analysts are predicting that this launch will be a big indicator for future online sales across Australia.

Amazon’s launch is going to have a huge impact on the Australian retail space, but there have been mixed opinions as to what businesses will be impacted most and whether it will be positive or negative. Odds are we’ll see a bit of both.

Bigger electronics retailers like JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman are predicted to be hit the hardest by Amazon. However smaller businesses may be able to reap the benefits of the Amazon Marketplace, which lets third-party retailers sell their product on Amazon’s platform.

Amazon’s launch in Australia could also spearhead an increase in online retail activity by consumers. Australia has a relatively low e-commerce penetration rate when compared to more mature markets like the US and UK, however as many Australian consumers are already aware of Amazon (many of whom already shop from overseas online retailers); their move into our market may increase online shopping activity across the board.